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Ramzi Yousef files lawsuit over solitary confinement

Yousef, 44, has been in solitary for 15 years and said keeping him there indefinitely despite his good behavior amounted to a violation of his due process.

A federal judge is expected to rule soon on whether the lawsuit can go to trial, the Los Angeles Times said Sunday.

Yousef was sentenced to life in prison for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured in the blast.

He has been locked up since his conviction at the federal “supermax” prison in Colorado. He is seeking a change in his status that will place him in the general prison population where he can have human contact and more time outside his cell.

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Published: Oct. 12, 2007 at 6:24 PM
FLORENCE, Colo., Oct. 12 (UPI) — The mastermind of the first terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York now claims he’s a Christian, but a former prison warden isn’t buying.

Ramzi Yousef is an inmate at the ADX-Florence for Administrative Maximum in Florence, Colo., which houses some of the United States’ most infamous criminals, including Oklahoma City bomber accomplice Terry Nichols, shoe bomber Richard Reid and terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

Robert Hood, the facility’s warden from 2002 to 2005, told CBS that Yousef never leaves his cell because he did not want to submit to a strip search required for recreation.

“He has that Charlie Manson look,” Hood says of Yousef. “He has some charisma about him. He’s in (prison) uniform, but you know that there’s a powerful person you’re looking at.”

When told Yousef has started leaving his cell and claims to have converted from Islam to Christianity, Hood said, “He’s playing a game with someone. If he’s doing that, he’s doing it for the reaction.”

Hood called Yousef “the real deal” who prayed almost every hour as a Muslim.

I fear that these muslim terrorists will soon be running the super max. Taliban John won a lawsuit allowing him and the other muzzies to pray together. This is disruptive to the prison and dangerous. I home the feds appeal this.